TheBestseller
Observatory

Best Sellers

Hardcover Fiction

Week of August 19, 1984

FictionNonfiction
WeekMonth
Jump to
2
LINCOLN
Gore Vidal
Cover of LINCOLN

LINCOLN

by Gore Vidal · Random House

9 wks on list

Lincoln is the cornerstone of Gore Vidal's fictional American chronicle, which includes Burr, 1876, Washington, D.C., Empire, and Hollywood. It opens early on a frozen winter morning in 1861, when President-elect Abraham Lincoln slips into Washington, flanked by two bodyguards. The future president is in disguise, for there is talk of a plot to murder him. During the next four years there will be numerous plots to murder this man who has sworn to unite a disintegrating nation. Isolated in a ramshackle White House in the center of a proslavery city, Lincoln presides over a fragmenting government as Lee's armies beat at the gates. In this profoundly moving novel, a work of epic proportions and intense human sympathy, Lincoln is observed by his loved ones and his rivals. The cast of characters is almost Dickensian: politicians, generals, White House aides, newspapermen, Northern and Southern conspirators, amiably evil bankers, and a wife slowly going mad. Vidal's portrait of the president is at once intimate and monumental, stark and complex, drawn with the wit, grace, and authority of one of the great historical novelists. With a new Introduction by the author.

4
1
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION
Robert Ludlum
Cover of THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION

by Robert Ludlum · Random House

24 wks on list

Michael Havelock's world died on a moonlit beach on the Costa Brava. He watched as his partner and lover, Jenna Karats, double agent, was efficiently gunned down by his own agency. There was nothing left for him but to quit the game, get out. Until, in one frantic moment on a crowded railroad platform in Rome, Havelock saw his Jenna alive. From then on, he was marked for death by both U.S. and Russian assassins, racing around the globe after his beautiful betrayer, trapped in a massive mosaic of treachery created by a top-level mole with the world in his fist--Parsifal.

6
THE BUTTER BATTLE BOOK
Dr. Seuss
Cover of THE BUTTER BATTLE BOOK

THE BUTTER BATTLE BOOK

by Dr. Seuss · Random House

23 wks on list

<b>In this classic cautionary tale about respecting differences, Dr. Seuss shows how a small—and in this case, very silly—disagreement can escalate into a big problem.<br><br>A <i>NEW YORK TIMES</i> NOTABLE BOOK</b><br><br><i>“But we Yooks, as you know, when we breakfast or sup, spread our bread,” Grandpa said, “with the butter side up.”</i><br><br>The Yooks and Zooks share a love of buttered bread, but animosity brews between the two groups because they enjoy the tasty treat differently. One prefers the butter side up, the other prefers the butter side down. How far will each side go to prove they’re right? <br><br>The timeless and topical rhyming text is an ideal way to teach young children about respect and conflict resolution. Whether in the home or in the classroom, <i>The Butter Battle Book</i> is a must-have for readers of all ages.

7
1
THE HAJ
Leon Uris
Cover of THE HAJ

THE HAJ

by Leon Uris · Doubleday

19 wks on list

Leon Uris retums to the land of his acclaimed best-seller "Exodus" for an epic story of hate and love, vengeance and forgiveness and forgiveness. The Middle East is the powerful setting for this sweeping tale of a land where revenge is sacred and hatred noble. Where an Arab ruler tries to save his people from destruction but cannot save them from themselves. When violence spreads like a plague across the lands of Palestine--this is the time of "The Haj."

8
1
DEEP SIX
Clive Cussler
Cover of DEEP SIX

DEEP SIX

by Clive Cussler · Simon & Schuster

12 wks on list

A SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 'Cussler is hard to beat' Daily Mail The gripping Dirk Pitt classic from multi-million-copy king of the adventure novel, Clive Cussler. For the President of the United States, the crisis point is approaching fast. With his new Soviet initiative entering its most crucial phase, the President suddenly finds himself faced with a pollution disaster of potentially cataclysmic proportions. And then - incredibly - he vanishes into thin air, leaving his country poised on the brink of chaos. It's left to troubleshooter extraordinaire Dirk Pitt to hotwire the connections between these two shattering events. From the icy Alaskan waters to a Korean shipbreaker's yard; from a Caribbean shipwreck to a blazing inferno in the Mississippi Delta, he tracks down a conspiracy so fiendish and sophisticated that even the superpowers are helpless in its grip . . . 'Clive Cussler is the guy I read' Tom Clancy 'The Adventure King' Daily Express

10
2
THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK
John Updike
Cover of THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK

THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK

by John Updike · Knopf

12 wks on list

"A great deal of fun to read...Fresh, consantly entertaining....John Updike remains a wizard of language and observation." THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER In a small New England town in the late 1960s, there lived three witches. Alexandra Spofford, a sculptress, Jane Smart, a cellist, and Sukie Rougemont, the local gossip columnist. Their supernatural gifts were intriguing, to say the least. Divorced but hardly celibate, content but always ripe for adventure, one day all three witches found themselves under the spell of a new man in town, Darryl Van Horne. His hot tub was the scene of some bewitching delights, but that doesn't being to conjure the half of it....

11
2
THE WALKING DRUM
Louis L'Amour
Cover of THE WALKING DRUM

THE WALKING DRUM

by Louis L'Amour · Bantam

13 wks on list

Warrior, lover, and scholar, Kerbouchard boldly sweeps through the castles, villages, and galleys of twelfth-century Europe, in an adventure that takes him from the shores of Brittany to the steppes of Russia.

Historical bestseller data sourced from the New York Times Book Review, archived by Hawes Publications.